IR Princess

"The Mrs" here. Nathan mentioned to me that I might want to explain my IR Princess nickname, as I work in a unique, specialized, often unheard of field, and many people may not be familiar with IR.

IR = Institutional Research. I work at a small, private, liberal arts university. At the University, I work in the Institutional Research office, which is charged with creating all of the surveys that we give to students, faculty, and staff, compiling and warehousing the data that we get from those surveys, and doing statistical analysis of that data for internal and external monitoring of the University. While this quantitative data analysis (from the surveys) takes up the majority of our time, we also do some qualitative research when trying to assist various individuals and departments in changing or forming policy.

So, that is sort of what I do. I always have a difficult time explaining my job. I do statistics. And as I am the asst. director, my friend Rex has given me the title "IR princess".

That's the story. I hope you enjoyed it and I taught you a little about what I do. If nothing else, I'm sure that Nathan might have learned something :)

Session Report: More Settlers With Dinner

The Mrs. and I played Settlers again with James and Karin, this time at their house and eating their dinner.

(aside: in order to keep the blog more honest (especially where it involves me), "The Mrs" (who, as a quasi-feminist, slightly despises that name and will from here on respond only to "Layla" or"IR princess") will be adding comments in purple. The blog owner (Nathan) states that he reserves the right to DELETE (not edit) any additions he finds particularly unsavory)

Dinner was great: ricotta stuffed manicotti, green salad with vegetables and olives, crusty Italian style bread, all delicious. I brought the wines this time around, although I managed not to pay much attention to the brands. I chose a simple Riesling and a Grenache/Shiraz mix, both of which were quite tasty. The Mrs. and I mostly drank the red (I'm a red kind of girl...and champagne! and long island iced tea! and shots of whiskey!), with Karin & James polishing off the majority of the white. Midway through our gaming later on we ran out of wine and had to transition into mixed drinks, so perhaps next time around three bottles of wine would be in order. They seem to be the white wine type, so I'm thinking two whites and a red is the way to go.

Everyone was eager to get to the game so we finished up with dinner and only paused for a quick smoke break before setting up the game. This time we jumped right into the random setup, unlike our previous one where we used the standard beginner's configuration. Everyone had lots of fun this time around and James and Karin seem quite addicted to Settlers, which is a very good thing!

The first game seemed to progress quickly until we had about six to eight victory points, where things began to stall. I was sitting on three cities, largest army, and absolutely no options for further building as close quarters gave me no room to place settlements. My only avenue to victory was pulling two vp cards out of the development deck. The Mrs. was stalled as well since she had lots of brick and lumber, all five settlements on the board, and was fighting over the longest road with Karin. She had no access to ore so had to rely on trading to upgrade to cities. James and Karin had been a little behind but began to edge closer as both the Mrs. and I spun our tires. I began to lose hope when the development deck got down to the last six cards, not even knowing if there were still two vps in there. Miraculously, two turns and two lucky vp cards later, I was the victor. An exhilarating win, indeed!

(Luck and persistence are the causes of this pathetic victory -- we were both at the same point, struggling with poor opening decisions, grasping at whatever we could do. The next game was much better....)

Karin suggested a second game, and we all heartily agreed. Certainly it is a good sign for things to come when everyone is up for another game when there are three exhausted kids in the next room and it is already 9:00pm. It was decided the kids could stay up a little later, and the game was on!

I don't remember a lot from our second game (defense mechanism), only that I had a good mix of all five resources and was building and expanding at a very healthy pace. Suddenly the Mrs. swept in, stealing the longest road from Karin, and adding it to her largest army and cities and settlements to score a decisive win. Still a fun game, but the ending was a bit of a shock, since I don't think any of us saw it coming quite so soon.

(Except Layla, who KNEW it was coming and tried VERY VERY hard to not give away the secret prematurely. The urge to shout "just give me the damn lumber so I can win already since it is happening ANY moment" was quite strong, but I called upon my meager allotment of self-control and managed to stun them. Honestly folks, it was a beautiful victory. I wish you had been there to observe their stunned silence at the massacre.)

This is as opposed to the previous game when the end dragged on a little until you expected someone to claim victory at any moment. We never had time for that feeling to develop in this one (too true).

Well, I'm quite happy to report that our first two sessions together seem to be pointing towards a frequent game night, which makes me very happy. Until our next meeting, I'll wait with much anticipation.

One last note: the unusually late bedtime for the kids (11:00pm) resulted in them both sleeping in until 9:00am...an unheard of occurrence in the Todd house! Certainly no complaints here (Layla isn't so eager to embrace this late awakening...who knows what tonight will bring).

The Mrs.

Good Morning Blogworld. As Nathan appears to be taking a sabbatical (now that he has a JOB again), I, the Mrs., have been given clearance to write a short post. Not yet a blogger myself, I am forced to rely on the kindness of others when the need to "get something out there" becomes too overwhelming.

Anyway -- on to the post! I woke up this morning after a horrendous night filled with one screaming almost-3 year old. The joys of parenting. Despite that loss of sleep, I still managed to be up and out of bed by 6:40, giving myself AN ENTIRE 20 MINUTES without the kids and husband hassling me. Since I am taking a vacation day, I did what any young parent would do when given child-free, non-work time: I hauled a few trash bags out to the Mazda and removed a few weeks worth of garbage from its interior.

Uninterrupted 'me' time always leads to random thinking. This morning's thoughts starred our daughter, Abby, as I contemplated her apparent knack for making new friends easily. A few short antidotes come immediately to mind:

1. A few weeks ago the four of us were out at a playground in the burgeoning metropolis of Massena. I was resisting the helicopter parenting urge quite well by sitting on a bench and doing a little recreational writing. Yet a conversation between Abby and another child caught my attention:

Random Boy: "Hey, what's your name?"
Abby: "Abby"
RB: "You want to be friends?"
A: "Sure."
Me: "Abby, what's his name?"
A: ::shrug::
RB: "I'm coming Abby!"

Random boy proceeds to shamelessly follow her around, chattering away until his parents decide to leave (which is THE ULTIMATE in awesomeness for other parents because it offers that wonderful "he is leaving too so this is a good time to go" option. Of course, It has come to my attention that this might be encouraging that awful peer pressure (oh honey, everyone is doing it. c'mon, you know you want to leave the park too!), but sometimes you are willing to do almost anything to avoid a 50 minute ride home of ... well, of a 4 year old who is bitter and wants to demonstrate to you just how pissed off she is.

2. A few weeks ago (ASIDE: to me, everything seems like it was a few weeks ago. It wasn't yesterday and I think it was this year so a few weeks sounds appropriate) we took the kids up to Parc Safari. We have been trying to bring them every year and, as this is the last year we can go without getting passports, we knew we had to make some time for it. Anyway, parc safari was fine. Not as great as other trips because it was HOT and overcrowded, but the kids were cooperative so it made the day pretty enjoyable. ANYWAY, because it was hot and sticky and Parc Safari has a "water park", Nathan took the kids swimming. Immediately, Abby picked up a friend who followed her around (although this time the friendship was more mutual with Abby loving this little girl and following her around as well). I would repeat some of their conversations (as they had many) except Abby's new friend didn't speak a word of English and I speak maybe 14 words of French. Trying to recall ANYTHING from my 3 years of high school French, I was able to direct Abby to say "Je M'appelle Abby," to which her friend said "OK." Her friend kept running back to her parents and I heard the phrase "ma ami" a few times. Her father and I exchanged that friendly our-kids-are-getting-along,-isn't-that-nice-even-if-we-cant-communicate-with-one-another smile. Although it is great to be social with other parents, the language barrier made it so nice because it wasn't even a little awkward to NOT make small talk.
Meanwhile, Abby and her friend are running around, talking at each other, not really caring that they can't understand anything that the other one is saying. It was adorable and awesome.

But -- what are these stories leading up to? Well -- I was just thinking about the incredible differences between Abby's ability to make friends and my own. Grown-ups, and I suppose I could be lumped into that category now (kids, husband, home ownership, real job, 403B ... all of these things would point in that general direction) just don't accept others that easily. We are too guarded. We have been taught to not become attached to people very quickly and, even if we do, certainly not to show it! We don't want to offer them anymore friendship than they are giving us and we certainly don't want to be publicly or privately humiliated for "loving" someone more than they love us.

I know that not all children have an easy time making friends, even when they are very young (as Abby is). So I have to wonder where her ability to put herself out there and make friends is coming from. Thinking about that 2 of us, I sure as hell know it isn't Nathan, so I guess it must be me. I will admit to being a fairly social person, especially under certain conditions (with people I already have a connection with, and if games or (even better) alcohol is involved). But I would like to harness more of those wonderful, "child-like" characteristics that would enable me to walk into a room filled with strangers and come away with some of their contact information. But perhaps what is a more important skill to learn is how to read people in order to accurately choose an appropriate topic of conversation as well as recognize their willingness to extend the relationship past a random house cooling party.

Anyway -- that is my 9 cents for the morning. I appreciate the ability to get it all out there. Nathan has been encouraging me to start a blog of my own. But, much like Ryan does for Creed in that wonderful show, The Office, I needed someone to screen my posts for me before taking it to the Internet. So -- please let Nathan know what you think by way of the comments thread. You hold my future in the palm of your hand. Use this power wisely.